Gibbous moon: a lunar phase where the moon is more than half full, but not quite yet fully illuminated when viewed from the perspective of the Earth. That's what the name Gibbous refers to, in case you were wondering. I know I was. But that out of the way, let's talk about the game itself.
Don R. Ketype, a private investigator, is on a case. He is looking for a book. An old book. For a client. It's missing, you see. And the client wants it back. And is giving Don money to retrieve it. Did I mention, that the book is the ill fabled Necronomicon, the book of the dead? But money is money and like every P.I. out there, Don is broke, so any paying job is as good as any.
As he is a good detective, Don manages to track the book to an old library in Darkham. As he inquires about it, the librarian Buzz tells him, that such a book doesn't exist. Not in its fabled ancient form at least. So that in mind, Don takes his leave, only to stumble upon a package left on the stairs of the library. It is a trap, which leads to him being taken captive. So now that he is out, the game shifts to its another playable character, Buzz. And what do you know, in the ruined library he manages to find the Necronomicon and with its sinister magic, he accidentally places a spell on his cat Kitteh, who begins to talk.
So now Buzz has a dilemma. He has a talking cat and an ancient book of evil. The only person he knows that knows something about the whole thing was captured in front of his eyes. There is only one option and that is to try and find Don in order to help Kitteh go back to normal and maybe find a way to get rid of the book as well.
The game is played in self-contained chapters, alternating between Don and Buzz. So as such, the game is pretty linear, as you can't change the character on the fly. It could have been more fun to be able to do that, or it could have at least created an illusion of the game being more open than it is, but in the end, it isn't a problem by any means.
The story is pretty good. While it is a parody/comedy set in a world where Lovecraftian monsters and cults that worship them exist, it manages to balance the tone between a bit more serious and comedy in a good manner. Some parts of it work better than others, especially the bit set in Transylvania is somewhat poorly constructed, but overall, the quality of the writing is good. The comedy worked for me at least, but as humour is highly subjective, I can't promise it is for everyone.
What really lifts Gibbous above most small budget indie adventures is the quality of the artwork and the animation. While a good many budget games end up using pixel graphics, Gibbous goes bravely far above that and utilises nicely drawn, high-resolution animation quality backgrounds and a lot of nicely done high-resolution animations, with a lot of custom animation thrown in the mix.
Considering the team consisted of 3 people, the quality of the art and animation is by itself astonishing. What is more astonishing is, that the game even has several cutscenes, which flesh out the story even further. The quality is already amazing for an indie game, but it has nothing to be ashamed of in comparison to games with noticeably bigger budgets. It is easy to see the developers wanted to go all-in with the art and it does show, as the end result is one of the best looking adventure games in years.
As the game has been made on a budget, their Kickstarter managed to get around 55 thousand dollars, the end result is nothing short of astonishing. But the meagre budget does bring some restrictions, and as usual, it is the voice acting that has suffered the most. As the game is fully voiced and there are a lot of characters, some of them do sound better than some others. The main cast is mostly pretty good, but even they do have some lines here and there which don't quite work. The sound quality is, overall, good, but it also is evident, that the actors recorded their lines with several different kinds of equipment. Luckily the music fares far better and the soundtrack is very good.
If you are a seasoned adventure gamer, the puzzles should not be a big obstacle. Any well-versed adventurer should be able to complete the game in 5-8 hours. As the puzzle logic is sensible, beginner adventurers should not have huge problems with most of the puzzles, but I'd reckon they would be spending anything from 8 to 15 hours with the game.
In many ways, it is pretty hard to believe, that Gibbous is a small budget indie game. Some aspects of it are better than what many bigger developers with bigger teams have managed to whip up. Small blemishes aside, it is a well-made adventure for a small first-time developer.
Considering the quality of Gibbous, I do hope it sells enough for the developer to be able to continue on this path. While it isn't a perfect game, it does contain a promise of things to come. And that promise is of high quality.
Gibbous - A Cthulhu Adventure can be bought from GOG and Steam. If you want to get one adventure game this year, this would be my recommendation.
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